JHienAPWHP2 - Africa and Africans in Atlantic Slave Trade

The Atlantic Slave Trade
Main Idea: Early Portuguese traders created patterns for the contacts made with the African coast. The American colonies were in high demand for slaves: the slave trade expanded, exporting millions with an organized commerce with both European and Africans.
Points:

The Portuguese explored and established forts and trading ports with resident merchants (factories). El Mina was the most important.
They controlled with few personals. Even with raids and cannons, the Portuguese were not powerful enough to enforce their control in larger African States.
The consent from local rulers allowed for most forts to be establish, wanting to benefit from European commodities and some military support.
Africans acquired goods like slaves from other stretch of coast from the Portuguese. The Africans traded ivory, pepper, animal skins, and gold.
Portuguese traded with Mali and Songhay/ routed to the gold-producing regions.
The Portuguese's ability to penetrate the trade of African routes (when they could add specialized items) was the key to success.
Portuguese's political, religious, and social relations with Africa was based of trade.
The mainly Muslim coast of Senegambian did not interact with the Portuguese.
Impressed with the gold coast, the Portuguese established a kingdom in Benin. Large African states had similar responses.
Missionary were made to attempt to convert the kingdoms of Benin, Kongo, and other African kingdoms.
It was a major success in Kongo with the conversion of the royal family. Nzinga Mvemba brought Christianity to the whole kingdom with the help from Portuguese advisors. (Europeanized)
Portugal and Kongo exchanged ambassadors and deal with issues. Mvemba tried to limit Portuguese activities when his subjects were enslaved. Portugal's control over Kongo lead to its abilty with outside communication and its dominance over Kongo's trade.
Contacts were first made with cultural preconceptions, appreciation, and curiosity.
The Africans fitted the Portuguese to existing spiritual and natural world,appearing in bronzes of Benin and carving their images to ivory sculptures of other African people .
Portuguese saw the Africans as savages and pagans that were capable of civilized behaviors and conversion to Christianity.
Portuguese explored southwards to Cape of Good Hope with contact to Mbundu people.
The Portuguese continued to permanently settle in places like Luanda in 1570s.
They established outposts on Mozambique Island and secure bases at Kilwa, Mombasa, Sofala, and other ports to control gold trade from Monomotapa.
There was not much settlement in western coast/ East Africa.
Portuguese's efforts were primarily commercial and military but strong with missionary efforts.
Portuguese's pattern of contact as followed by others.
The Dutch, English, French and other competed with the Portuguese in the 17th century (displacing them).
They had systems of fortified trading stations, combination of force and diplomacy, alliances with local rulers, and a predominance of commercial relations. This was the principal pattern of European contact with Africa.
Portugal's major interest was the slave trade, after goods, gold, pepper, and other products. (Slavery was most replaced with serfdom remained in the Mediterranean and Iberia war with Christians and Muslims.)
Black Africans were brought to the Mediterranean during this period. A direct channel was open for sub-Saharan Africa by Portuguese voyages. slaves became a common item.
The Europeans raided for slaves along the coast but with minimal success, trade was found to be more successful, profitable and secure.
More slaves were trade when the Portuguese developed sugar plantations in the Atlantic islands of Madeira and the Canaries and Sao Tome.
Sugar production demanded workers to be in difficult conditions in (sub)-tropical environments. Managers directly controlled slaves with little restraint. Plantations of sugar but also other crops and in later spread to America. The workers were mostly African.
After 1550, slave trade grew in volume and complexity that by 1600, slave trade predominate to all others commerce in the African coast.

Trends Towards Expansion
Main Idea: Many African slaves from across the African continent were exported to the new world between 1450 to 1850. Trades varied with the political and economical situations of the Americas.
Points:

Estimated 12 million Africans were shipped to the Atlantic in the 1450 to 1850. (with a 10-20 percent mortality rate) only 10 to 11 million actually made it. The morality resulted from slaving wars and forced marches. In the 16th century the numbers were smaller, in the 17th century it was 16,000 per year and 7 million in the 18th century. ( 80 percent of the whole number)
3 millions slaves lived in American in later times. Slave trade continued in places in the 19th century even when slavery was under attack.
700,00 to Cuba and 1 million to Brazil. In these places, slavery mortality was high and fertility was low. There was a lost in population, more slaves would be exported.
In southern United States the slave population grew with good temperature climates and work that was not too dangerous and unhealthy.
The British and French Caribbean made from 80 to 90 percent of the slave population while North American only made up a quarter of the population.
The dimension of trade varied with the political and economical situation in the Americas.
Spanish Americas and Brazil received the majority of slaves from 1530 to 1650. The English and French started to grow sugar at the Caribbeans, Jamaica, Barbados, and St. Domingue becoming important terminals.
Virginia and the Carolinas in American became major destinations but never compared to the Caribbeans.
From 1550-1850, Brazil received about 42 percent of all the slaves to the New World, then the Caribbean islands. Then The Domingue and Jamaica received one million slaves in the 18th century.
These figures are only for the Atlantic slave trade.Other trades like the trans-Sahara, Red Seam and east African slave trade brought an additional 3 million more African slave.
For the Atlantic slave trade, slaves were taken from across the continent.
The majority of slaves were taken from the Senegambia region in the 16th century.
Central Africa was the major supplier in the 17th century.
Slave were also exported from areas of the golden coast like Dahomey and Benin, where wars were caused and resulted from the increasing slave exports.

Demographic Patterns
Main Idea: Men were commonly traded more often then women impacting Africa's demographic. New crops were introduced to Africa.
Points:

In trans-Saharan slave trade, women were used as concubines and domestic servants in north Africa and the Middle East, but it The Atlantic slave trade concentrated on men. American mine owners and planters seek workers for heavy labor and did buy children (high morality).
African society often sold male captives to slavery since women and children were used as domestic slaves or to extend existing kin groups.
There was a demographic impact in parts if west and central Africa. Half of the population of 25 millions were gone by the 1850.
Captive women and children remained in Africa and the numbers of enslaved people swelled, skewing the proportion of women to men in the enslaving societies.
From the Atlantic trade, new crops developed like maize and manioc were introduced to Africa, providing new food resources for the recovering population.

Organization of Trade
Main Idea: Slavery and its trade was essential to the economies the Americas, Europe, and Africa. European countries often competed for slaves. Slaves were brought by all means. During this age, trade was the most profitable business activity.
Points:

Portuguese's pattern of contact and trade were followed by rival Europeans on the African coast. Control reflected Europe's political situation
Portuguese controlled the coastal trade and supplied their own colonies in Brazil and the Spanish settlements in America for one and half centuries, until around the 1630.
The growth of slave-based Caribbean plantation colonies and elsewhere led others to compete with the Portuguese.
Seizing El Mina, The Dutch became a major competitors in the 1637.
The English sourced their own slaves for their growing colonies in Barbados, Jamaica, and Virginia.
The Royal African Company was chartered for this purpose.
In the 1660s, the French made similar arrangements but became a major carrier in the 18th century.
Other small European nations like Denmark had its agents and forts ob the African coast.
Merchant towns or trade forts were established by each nations for a steady source of captives to be able to obtain.
Europeans stationed on the coast of Africa encountered tropical diseases.
Employees of the Royal Africa never reentered to England and the majority died in the first year.
Mortality for the European crew on broad for slave ships were also very high with tropical diseases like malaria.
The agents from the European companies often had to directly deal with the local rulers, paying taxes and gifts giving.
A variety of currency was used from iron bars to brass rings to cowrie shells.
The Spanish developed a system called the Indies piece with a health man, and children and women were priced at a fraction of the value.
Slaves were brought from a variety of means from the coast.
European military campaigns were used in Angola to produce captives.
Captives were purchased at interior trade centers bu African and mulato agents.
A royal monopoly was produced in Dahomey to control slave flow.
Some groups their position from the interior to tax and control slave movement.
Private merchants often circumvented restrictions when African and European states tried establishing trade monopolies.
Europeans and Africans were actively involved in slave trade. There was not a clear control in one side, still millions of Africans were sent to foreign lands.
Historians believe that slave trade was highly profitable.
Constant trading of slave lead to commercial capitalism and later origins of the Industrial Revolution.
Many people profited from it, a slaving voyages making a profit of as much as 300 percent.
The merchants in ports specialized in fitting out ships for the slave trade and African supplier made a profit.
Profit levels didn't remain so high with the risks and costs. English slave trade had a profit rate in 5 to 10 percent on average in the late 18th century and French and Dutch trade slightly lower. It was more profitable to other business of the age.
The full economical importance of slavery to the economies of Europe was so directly linked to plantation and mining economies of the Americas.
A triangular trade existed in which the Americas sent sugar tobacco, and other goods to Europe, European products were sent to the coast of Africa and slaves were sent to the Americans.
Triangular trade between the Americas, Africa, and Europe
The persistence of slave trade showed its viability.
Slave trade contributed to the formation of the emerging Atlantic capitalism.
The slave trade caused Africa's economic yo be dependent of the trade with the Europeans and suppressed the growth of other economic activities.

African Societies, Slavery, and the Slave Trade:
Main Idea: African servitude and the social and political development of African states was influenced by slave trade.Slavery produced long-term effects in east Africa and Sudan. Newly powerful states emerged in west Africa.
Points:

Europeans justified African enslavement by pointing out its existence on other continent.
Atlantic trade interacted with, transforming the earlier aspects of slavery.
African societies had created many forms of servitude (peasantry status to property slavery)
Many African societies all land was owned by the state or the ruler, were non-egalitarian. The control of slavery lead to individuals increasing wealth and status.
Slaves were used as servants, concubines, soldiers, administrator and field work.
Sometimes whole villages of enslaved people were forced to pay tributes to the ruler.
Muslim traders in west Africa had slave porters and slave villages to supply their caravans.
These economic and social relations reinforced hierarchies of various African societies, allowing nobles, senior lineages, and rulers to exercise their power.
Slavery was an important institution before the European arrival in Kongo and Benin. The Atlantic trade opened new opportunities for expansion and intensification of slavery in these societies.
Slaves in many African Societies could attain position of command and trust. Most slaves were denied these actions and lives.
Slaves were dependent or inferior positions. (Alien) Women were often enslaved for domestic and extension of lineages.
The position of women were lowered in some societies and increased the power of rulers and merchants with the creation of harems.
Sudanic savanna states, Islamic concepts slavery were introduced.
Despite legal scholar complaints against enslavement of Muslims, many Sudanic states enslaved their Pagan and Muslim captives.
Slave communities in the Niger valley porduced agricultural surpluses for Songhay, Gao and other states" rulers and nobles.
Slaves were used in gold mining and slat production and caravan worker in the Sahara.
Slavery labor diffused form control and wealth in Africa.
Europeans mobilized commerce in slaves by tapping existing routes and supplies, aiding rulers of certain African states wanting more slaves and aid and commodities from Europe.
African People did not general enslave their own people except for crimes or other circumstances, and enslaved their neighbors.
Centralized and slave-important institution states were major supplies to Europe.

Slaving and African Politics:
Main Idea:From 1500 to 1750, European empires based on gun-powder expanded international commerce of Europe by penetrating sub-Sahara Africa, existing states and societies were transformed.
Points:

European merchants and royal officials had the ability to tap existing routes, markets, and institutions but African enslavement intensified, changing the nature of slavery itself in some African societies.
Many central states were small and fragmented, causing competitions for land and warfare for power. Soldiers and warriors became an important social state.
Wars promoted military importance and the sale of captives for the slave trade. (Showing politics:political punishment)
In some states they took a religious overtone to war but not in the west and central Africa.
Millions if human being were captured and sold. (European demand or African politics.)
In enslaving African societies developed ideas of self-sufficiency and anti-authoritarian with increasing centralization and hierarchy.
European's presence on the coast created a shift on the locus of power within Africa.
Inland states were free from European direct European influence. They became intermediaries in trade, expanding their influence with Western goods like fireman. (Unending wars)

Asante and Dahomey:
Main Idea: Highly immersed in slave trading, Asante and Dahomey developed politically, culturally and expanded.
Points:

The empire of Asante was one of the most important developing states in the slave trade times among Akans.
Asante was in between inland Hausa and Mande trading regions, centered on Kumasi.
Asante was controlled by the Oyoko clan. They gained access to firearms after 1650 and started to centralize and expand.
Among the Akan clans, Osei Tutu became asantehene. (Supreme civil and military leader.)
Along the coast, the Dutch directly dealt with the new power from 1700 and on.
Asante remained dominant in gold coast, controlling gold-producing regions and slaves until 1820s.
Benin was at the top of its power when Europeans arrived.
For a long period, a ruler controlled trade with Europe, slave never being a primary commodity.
Dahomey kingdom among the Fons had a different response to Europe.
Forming in the 17th century around Abomey, Dahomey had access to firearms by the 1720s, leading to the formation of autocratic regimes based on slave trading.
Dahomey expanded to the coast under Agaja, seizing port of Whypdah.It maintained until the 19th century.
There was no much of an emphasis on slave trading that it overshadowed African states' creative processes.
The rise in divine authorial rulers were similar to the rise of absolutism in Europe.
New political emerged to limit monarchy power.
In Yoruba state of Oyo, the king shared his authority with a council.
In many regions art, crafts, weaving, and wood carving flourished.
In Benin and the Yoruba states, they created amazing wood and ivory sculptures.

East Africa and the Sudan:
Main Idea: In East Africa and Sudan, they continued to have slave commerce with the Middle East. Many of these African states were influenced by Islam.
Points:

Swahili trading towns on the coast continued a ivory, gold, and slave commerce for Middle Eastern markets.
Few slaves went to European plantation colonies.
Arabs, Indians, Swahili produced cloves from slave work on Zanzibar and other islands. (creating important states)
Migrants from upper Nile valley mixed and nilotic groups/ Luo with Bantu-speaking natives moving to Uganda.
In Bunyoro and Buganda, strong monarchies formed.
Islamization went into a new phrase, linking external slave trade and growth of slavery in western Africa and southern savanna.
New states were formed when Songhay broke up in the 16th century.
Most of the African population followed African religions but the Bambara of Segu were pagan and the Hausa states in northern Nigeria were ruled by Muslims.
Muslim reform movements swept western Sudan starting from the 1770s,
In Hausa in the 1804 by Uthman Dan Fodio/ Fulani winning control and spreading Islam. New and powerful kingdoms developed at Sokoto. Social and cultural rapidly changed.
War captives were often dispatched to the coast/ across the Sahara for slave trade.
Agricultural and manufacturing enterprises increased with the level of local slave labor.

White Settlers and Africans in Southern Africa:
Main Idea: In the southern part of Africa, Europeans were brought from a dutch colony causing conflicts with Africans like the Bantu-speaking people.
Points:

Bantu-speaking people occupied southern Africa's eastern regions by the 16th century.
The indigenous Khoikhoi and San were left with the drier western land.
Groups interaction were often migration, peaceful contacts and war.
The Bantu people practiced herding and agriculture, worked iron and copper, and traded with neighbors.
Chiefdoms were of various seizes. Leader rulered typically with popular support.
New Chiefdoms emerged continuously, competing for land and were political instability.
Dutch settlers developed large estates worked on by slaves in 1652, in Cape Town.
Successful wars against San and Khoikhoi were led from colonial expansion.
Boers forming the Great Trek, leading to the crossing of the Orange River. meeting the Bantu in the 1769s.
Competition and war for land resulted in British occupies Dutch colonies in 1795 and gaining formal possession on 1815.
The British were unsuccessful in limiting Afrikaner expansion and frequently fought with them.
The Afrikaners seek escape from British control, migrating beyond colonial boundaries and forming autonomous states.

The Mfecane and the Zulu Rise to Power:
Main Idea: The Zulu, created under Shaka during the early 19th century in expansion affected the whole region.
Points:

A new leader by the name of Shaka gain control among the Nguni people by the 1818.
Shaka a powerful and fearing military force of regiments organized by lineage and age lines.
His Zulu chiefdom became the central to the new political and military organization, absorbing and destroying rivals.
Shaka was assassinated in 1828 and his successors ruled with the still-growing policies of his.
The Beginning of the Mfecane ( time of war and wandering) was marked from the rise of Zulu and other Nguni chiefdoms.
Swazi and Lesotho used Zulu tactics to fled into new regions and create new states, they were defeated.
Superior firepower of Afrikaners allowed them to hold their lands.
Zulus remained powerful until the 1870s when they were defeated by the British.
Patterns of conflict between the Europeans and Africans took form.

The African Diaspora:
Main Idea: Slave trade connected African to the world's economy and commerce
Points:

African and the Americas were linked together by the slave trade. African became joined in the world economy.
Africans was integrated with the mercantile structure of the world
Imports of firearms, Indian textiles, Indonesian cowrie shells, and American tobacco from Europe
Exports of ivory, gold, and especially slaves.
Africans involved in commerce learn to deal with this situation effectively.
In 18th century the price of slaves rose and favored the African dealers.
African ports like Whydah, Porto Novo, and Luanda, African or Afro-European communities developed, specializing in slave trade and used this position as an advantage.

Slaves Lives:
Main Idea: Slaves were treated and lived in very deadly conditions, even it all of this they maintained their culture.
Points:

Slavery led to the destruction of slave's villages or a slave's capture in war. Slaves were often separated from their family and friends and forced to move to the interior trading town or to slave pens at the coast.
Conditions were often deadly.
One out of three slaves died on the way to the slave pens, them the slaves were loaded to the ships..
Cargo size through varied, were often high, slaves were crowded into dank, unsanitary conditions of the ship.Cargoes were small.
Mortality was more based on the voyage's length or the point of origin (Benin and Biafra was very dangerous) rather then overcrowding.
The average mortality rate varied, but ran at around at 18 percent until the 18th century.
Still there were some catastrophic losses like in 1737 when Dutch ship lost 700 out of 716.
The Middle Passage, slave voyage to America was traumatic.
Slaves were shackled, branded , confined, and taken from their home.
Africans also faced dangers of poor hygiene, dysentery, disease, the fear of being beaten by Europeans and bad treatment.
This lead to resistance and mutiny on ships.
Africans on the Middle Passage still had their culture.
Africans maintained there languages, beliefs, artistic traditions, and memories of their past.

Africans: in Americas:
Main Idea: Africans mostly worked mainly on plantations of the Americas but were also miners and had urban occupatiobs.
Points:

African slaves were often brought to the Americas mines and plantations.
Landed estates often used large amounts of most coerce labor becoming a characteristic of American agriculture with sugar first then rice, cotton, and tobacco.
The plantation systems of the Atlantic islands of Spain and Portugal were transferred to the New World.
First Native American laborers were used in places like Brazil and Hispaniola, then Africans.
West Africans came from societies of herding, metallurgy, and intensive agriculture that were sought by Europeans for the specialized tasks of making sugar.
In the English colonies of Barbados and Virginia, indentured English servants were replaced the enslaved African when new crops like sugar was introduced and indentured servants less available.
Plantation system of farming with dependent or enslaved workforce characterized production of many tropical and semitropical crops in demand in Europe.
Plantation became the focus of African and American life.
Slaves also mined, work in urban occupations as artisans, street vendors, and household servants.

American Slave Societies:
Main Idea: Each American slave-based society reflected the variation of its European origin and its component African cultures, had similar and common features.
Points:

There were distinctions between African-born saltwater slaves and creole slaves. (Slave women were sexually exploited).
American slave societies were based on race and color: free whites at the top, slaves at the bottom and free color people in an intermediate position.
Slaveholders created a hierarchy based on origin and color among the slaves.
Creoles and mulatto slaves were given more opportunities for acquire skilled jobs or work as house servants rather then in the fields or mines.
They also were more likely to win their freedom by manumission and voluntary freeing of slaves.
This hierarchy was the creation of the slaveholders.
Important African nobles or religious leaders, who were sold into slavery, continued to exercise their authority within the slave community.
Communities were divided maintaining and affiliating in America from the distinctions between Creole and African.
Many slave rebellions in the Caribbean and Brazil were organized along African enthic and political lines.
In Jamaica, there were Akan-led rebellions in the 18th century.
In Brazil in the 17th century there was an escape of the Angolan slave community.
Slave-based societies varied in their composition but were similar on economical factors.
In early 17th century in Lima, Peru, the blacks outnumbered Europeans.
In the 17th century, The Africans and their descendants formed a vast majority in the Caribbean islands.
In Jamaica and St. Domingue, the slaves made up more than 80 percent of the population.
In Brazil slaves made up 35 percent of the population since they were more diverse population and economy. Free colored people made up a third, equaling two thirds.
Slavery in North America was less influenced by Africa.
North Americans cities like Charleston and New Orleans developed large slave and free African populations.
The southern colonies of British North America depended more on the natural population growth among slaves than importing slaves.
In North America, Creole slaves were predominate, manumission was less common and free colored people made up less than 10 percent of the total Afro-American population.
The slave population of North America made up itself by the mid-18th century. by the 1850s fewer than 1 percent of slaves were African born.
Combination of natural growth and small direct trade from Africa was reducing the degree og African cultural reinforcement.

The People and Gods in Exile:
Main Idea: Africans slaves faced series of problems in America. Slaves culture were often adapted. Slaves rebelled and had resistance.
Points:

African slaves faced a peculiar series of problems, being in the Americas.
Working conditions were exhausting and life was different and short.
There was a bad ration of females to men, making it different for family formation.
Slaves were insecurity since many of there family members might be separated by sale of by a master's whim.
Most slaves lived in family unites, but it was not sanction by their master's religion.
Africans brought aspects of language, religion,, artistic, sensibilities, and other cultural elements survived.
The volume and intensity of slave trade in a particular area showed the amount of continuity.
Some slaveholders tried to make slaves lost strong African identities with the same regions undercutting such policies .
African slaves often adapted and incorporated other African people's ideas and customs into their own lives in America.
The master's customs and ways were also imposed.
The emerging Afro-American culture reflected a new reality of adapted, specific African roots. This culture was dynamic and creative.
Religion was continued and adapted.
Slaves were converted to Catholicism by Spaniards and Portuguese, showing fervent membership of Black Catholic brotherhood.
Salve joined Protestant denomination in North America and British Caribbean.
African religious ideas and practices still existed.
In the English Islands, African practices were called obeah. Brazilian candomable and Haitian vodun.
African religions flourished even went people attempted to suppress them.
Religions was easier to transfer with the Middle Passages. African religions were changed by contract with other African slaves with the colonial society.
In many cases, slaves tried to fuse Christianity and their African beliefs. This was difficult for Muslim slaves.
In 1835 there was a huge Muslim slave rebellion in Brazil against other religions.
African American history had aspects of resistance and rebellion.
Recalcitrance, running away, and direct confrontation were present in slave areas.
In Hispaniola, African runaways disrupted communication as early as 1508.
In Mexico City, plots of rebellion were uncovered in 1527.
Communities of runaway slaves were formed throughout the Americas.
In the Caribbean islands and Brazil runaway communities persisted.
In the 17th century, Palmares was an enormous runaway slave kingdom in Brazil that resisted Portuguese and Dutch attempts to destroy it for a century.
The runaway Maroons were able to gain some independence and freedom in Jamaica.
In North America, resistance less based on African origins or ethnicities were also important.
In the former Dutch plantation colony, Suriname slaves ran off in the 18th century and mounted into a perceptual war.
The Suriname Maroon still exist in the rain forest and maintain many aspects of west African culture with language,kinship relations, and religious beliefs but were fused with new forms from European and American Indians.

The End of the Slave Trade and the Abolition of Slavery:
Main Idea: The Changes in economic, political, and religion in European and its oversea American and former colonies led to the end of the Atlantic slave trade and abolition of slavery.
Points:

These changes manifestations of the Enlightenment, the age of revolution, Christian revivalism and the Industrial were external to Africa. They determined the place and nature of change within Africa.
Some African societies began exporting other commodities like peanuts, cotton, and palm oil, becoming less dependent on slave trade. (The supplies of slaves was not greatly effected.)
British plantations economies boomed from 1790 to 1830.
Plantation in Cuba, Brazil and southern United Sates flourished in the following decade.
In the mid-18th century, opponents of slavery and the brutality of trade like Enlightenment thinkers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith started to emerge.
The symbol of slavery was inhumanity and cruelty. Slave trade was criticized.
England the major maritime power was the key to ending.
Under the leadership of religious humanitarians, like John Wesley and William Wilberforce, an abolitionist gaining strength against merchants and West Indies interest.
The British slave trade was abolished in 1807. Britain tried to impose abolition of the slave trade to other nations throughout the Atlantic.
Spain and Portugal gradually suppressed slave trade from the pressure and Britain captured illegal slave ships.
The full end of slavery in the Americas didn't occur until 1888 with its abolishment in Brazil.